


some solemn graces

by burning_brightly



Category: Figure Skating RPF
Genre: (I may or may not have a kink for bossy Tessa), F/M, also Tessa is very bossy, also in which Buttle is horrified for good reason, fear of being discovered, in which Scott is clueless & adorable, shower smut (of sorts)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 08:23:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,067
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17804501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burning_brightly/pseuds/burning_brightly
Summary: It's the silence that gets him. He likes to talk. He's a talkative guy.But Tessa doesn't want him to say anything, and whatever Tessa wants, Tessa gets.(otherwise known as the fic in which I indulge my triple loves of Tessa getting bossy, Scott having no idea what she's up to, and Buttle clutching his pearls at highly illicit activities in a shared change room)





	some solemn graces

**Author's Note:**

> Title taken from Edgar Allan Poe's "Silence."
> 
>  
> 
> _There is a two-fold Silence- sea and shore-_  
>  _Body and soul. One dwells in lonely places,_  
>  _Newly with grass o'ergrown; some solemn graces,_  
>  _Some human memories and tearful lore,_  
>  _Render him terrorless..._

CSOI - Vancouver

May 19, 2016

 

He can’t figure out exactly what is going on, but Tessa’s been in a _mood_ today. An...intriguing mood.

It started early this morning when she greeted him in the hotel lobby, very sleepy and grouchy and murderous-looking, clutching a large coffee like her life depended on it. He’d smiled and hugged her, and she’d made this _noise_ in the back of her throat, something between a growl and a groan. (It really was unfairly hot.)

And then she’d dropped her head onto his shoulder and nuzzled, and he felt like his chest might explode. She’s been doing this a lot lately, cuddling and nuzzling and generally being tactile, and he doesn’t know what to _do_ with it. They agreed last year that they’d stop screwing around with each other during this comeback, that they’d be actual partners, that the days of kind-of-sort-of cheating and lying and getting distracted were firmly behind them. But none of that has in any way changed the fact that every time she touches him outside of their routines, something is set alight under his skin, something that travels like an electric current through every muscle, every bone.

He’d kept his arm around her, just barely kept from pressing a kiss to her hair, but he breathed in the scent of strawberries like his life depended on it (and remembered when that smell was all over his sheets, his pillows, when his room smelled of strawberries and Tessa and it drove him wild).

“You ready for rehearsal, kiddo?” he’d asked, trying to sound _normal_ , not like some sex-crazed maniac, and she’d closed her eyes and burrowed deeper into him like he was some sort of helpful barrier against the reality of mornings.

“Uh-uh,” she’d said in a small, pitiful voice that made him want to cuddle her, wrap her up in something warm and carry her back to bed and snuggle with her until she actually felt like waking up again, and _God_ , he’s an idiot.

“Tess, the bus is here, we kind of have to go,” he’d said at last, desperately, but when she finally peeled herself off of him and trundled blearily towards the lobby doors, it felt nearly like physical pain, having her gone. Shit, but this whole “no sex with your partner” thing kind of sucks. (Although, if he’s being honest, sex is only a small part of what he wants this time around.)

He didn’t sit by her on the bus on purpose, so that he would avoid getting in her personal space. He’s getting a little worried lately that he’s going to lose his mind if he’s too close to her off the ice, that he’ll do something incredibly stupid like pinning her against the nearest available flat surface and kissing her like his life depends on it. And then...he doesn’t really want to know what might happen then. Probably the end of his existence as he knows it.

Anyway, he’s managed to keep his distance all the way to the rink, but now that they’re here and pulling on their skates, he realises abruptly that distance isn’t exactly a possibility anymore. They’re practicing “What’s Love Got To Do With It” this morning, and if there’s one thing he knows about that program, it’s that it involves a hell of a lot of touching.

Oh God.

She skates out on the ice and starts doing laps to warm up, and he’s just staring at her for he doesn’t know how long, until she suddenly stops in front of him and reaches out to cup his cheek. He can actually _feel_ his eyes go wide at her touch.

“You okay?” she says softly. “You look...I don’t know. Dazed, or something.”

Yeah, _dazed_ seems like a pretty fair way to describe it.

“I’m...I’m good,” he mutters, and hauls his ass off the bench where he’s been sitting to go warm up with her. In a minute or two, he’s getting her to laugh at some stupid story Poje told him yesterday, and he’s grinning from ear to ear at the sound of her giggles, and everything’s back to normal.

Until it’s not.

They’re practicing one of the lifts, and he’s bringing her down when she slides her fingers into his hair. He freezes, holding her in the air, her face above his, and her eyes are glittering strangely as she hovers just out of reach.

“Are you going to let me down?” she murmurs, and her mouth is so close, so very close. He could bring her down at just the right angle, and then...but he can’t. They can’t. He owes her this, after screwing up for a year straight, after nearly breaking her heart, after scaring the shit out of her. He owes her an uncomplicated partnership, a clean shot at the gold medal.

“Yeah,” he whispers, because he doesn’t trust himself to actually speak, and slides her down, and if he takes a bit longer about it than he really needs to, well, that’s nobody’s business but his own.

It happens again in the middle of a side-by-side section, where his arm is wrapped around her shoulder and hers is locked around his waist. For anyone else, this would be rather intimate, but it’s normal for them, has been for years.

What is definitely _not_ normal is the way her hand dips down to his waist instead of staying on his ribcage where it belongs. Neither is it normal for her thumb to slip inside his waistband and caress his hip. At least, that’s what he thinks she’s doing.

He actually stops in the middle of the move, stops dead on the ice and stares at her.

“Scott?” she says after a minute. Her thumb hasn’t moved. “What are you doing?”

He thinks seriously about asking her the same question, but decides he is too afraid of the answer. He knows damn well what his limits are, what they have to be, but he’s never been brave enough to ask her if anything’s changed on her end. What if it hasn’t, and then he’s the asshole who’s suddenly pressuring her for more when he promised no distractions? No, he can’t go there. He _won’t_ go there.

“Just...uh...catching my breath,” he says, which is a blatant lie. “Gonna grab a drink, okay?”

And then he’s disentangling himself from her and skating over to the boards like he’s being chased by a rabid grizzly. He can feel the imprint of her thumb against his hip, even through the fabric of his shirt, as if he’s been branded. Jesus.

When he gets back to her, it’s like everything’s just fine again, perfectly fine, and then they’re practicing _that lift_ , and it all starts going to hell in a handbasket. Because he can keep it together for most of their practices, he really can. He’s a professional, goddammit, and a three-time Olympic medallist, and he can force himself to behave on the ice. But then they do _that lift_ , and he’s got her ass right in front of his face, and all thoughts of professionalism go flying out the window.

He thanks God on a semi-daily basis that he’s had to practice his turnout since he was ten years old, or he’s not sure what might happen here.

She swings herself up on his thigh, carefully, because even though they’ve practiced this for a long time, she doesn’t want to hurt him. He knows that. Hell, he has thin white scars on his upper thighs from the months they were first learning to do this properly. He vividly remembers a moment, years ago, when she’d pinned him down on his bed and insisted on kissing every mark she’d left on him that day in practice. They’d been fresh then, stinging still, but he hadn’t noticed or cared with her mouth on them. She’d brushed her lips over the red welts tenderly, so tenderly, teased him with her eyes and her pretty mouth so close to where he actually wanted it, but she’d refused to take mercy on him until he breathed out, “ _please_ , Tess” in a choked voice. And then she’d taken him in her mouth and the rest of the memory is pretty much white noise and blinding pleasure, lancing through his veins like lightning.

It occurs to him as she swings her other leg into place and settles her weight that he really should not have thought of _that_ particular memory with her in this position. Her ass is there - _right_ there - and he can’t look away. In fact, it’s his damn job to _not_ look away. And oh God, but she’s perfect, so unfairly perfect, and he can’t help but imagine what he could do with fifteen minutes and a bed and Tessa on her stomach and...fuck, this is not good. This is so very not good.

He doesn’t drop her. He swore to her years ago he’d never drop her, and he’s kept his promise. But the second she’s down safely, both blades back on the ice, he skates over to the boards and buries his head in his folded arms, willing his raging erection to disappear, willing the blood drumming in his ears to subside, embarrassed beyond belief that he’s such a goddamned fool this morning. He wants her - he’s known that since he was fifteen and staring at her belly ring with a dumbstruck look on his face, since he was eighteen and thinking of her every night in the shower, since he was twenty and twenty-two and...well, all of his life to this point, really. Every single damned day of his adult life, he’s wanted her. It’s not something he can just turn off at will.

And it wouldn’t be so bad if he didn’t desperately want to make her happy, make her proud of him again. She doesn’t need Scott Moir, horny jerkwad. (She’s had plenty of that, God forgive him, in years past.) She sure as hell doesn’t need Scott Moir, distracted idiot. What she _needs_ is a partner she can trust, who will respect the boundaries they agreed on, who will match her in every respect in training and in competition, and who will not let her down ever again. And that’s what he’s going to be, fuck it all, no matter what it takes.

(Even if the thought of never kissing her again makes him feel like his chest is going to cave in.)

She skates up beside him - he can hear the swish of her blade, can feel her warmth at his right side. Then she does exactly what he feared - reaches out and runs her palm over his back. He shudders at her touch, feels it all the way to his toes.

“Scott?” she says, so softly, and the sound of his name in her mouth, God, it’s everything he’s wanted for so long. “What’s wrong?”

He doesn’t know what to say.

“Scott…” She’s pleading now, and he wants to tell her, wants to turn his head and spill out everything to her, right here in this unfamiliar practice rink in Vancouver. He wants to tell her that he loves her, that he hasn’t stopped wanting her for even a day, that he’d do anything at all for her, hand over his whole self on a silver platter if she wanted it.

What he settles on instead is, “Leg cramp,” which is the worst lie in the history of all lying. She seems to buy it, though, murmuring, “Oh, sorry,” and giving him a few minutes to collect himself. When he finally manages to raise his head from his arms and take a deep breath, she’s getting a drink at the other side of the rink, and he sends up a prayer of thanks to the powers that be that he has a second to get himself under control.

He looks at her, his Tessa - beautiful, funny, generous, talented Tessa - grits his teeth, and gets back on the ice.

She deserves nothing less.

(But, as he expected, the rest of practice is sheer torture. Naturally. Apparently it’s just his lot in life.)

* * *

That night the program goes beautifully, and for once, he gets to stare at her with every ounce of longing and devotion plain on his face and no one suspects a thing. It’s one of the many, many reasons he loves this program, because he’s _expected_ to look like he adores her, and it feels like, for three and a half minutes, he finally gets to live the truth. For less than five minutes every night, he can breathe freely, can touch her anywhere he likes (well, maybe not _anywhere_ , but pretty damn close), can murmur the words of the song against her skin, and everyone’s perfectly fine with it.

Including Tessa.

Apparently he’s not fooling everybody, though. When they’re coming off the ice, Jeff gives him a look, eyes slitted, scrutinizing. Tess is already snapping on her skate guards and doesn’t notice, for which he is devoutly thankful.

“What?” he snaps, but quietly. Jeff’s still staring at him, as if Scott is some sort of sudoku puzzle that Jeff can’t quite figure out.

“You’re...different,” he says finally, and Scott’s hackles go up. Shit. He cannot afford to have Jeff running his mouth right now.

“Different _how?_ ” he says, sounding less than friendly. Jeff tilts his head, then looks over to Tessa.

“With her. You’re different,” he says decidedly, and Scott feels bird’s wings of panic flutter against his ribcage.

“Well yeah, Jeff, we’re in training again,” he says, dismissive, bordering on rude. He’s never like this, usually, but this is _Tessa_ , and he can’t afford anyone figuring this out, much less nosy Jeff Buttle. (Whom he loves, really, but who will not stop prying when he senses there’s a good secret in the SOI cast.)

Jeff just raises an eyebrow.

“Uh-huh,” he says. “That’s not it.”

Scott snaps on his skate guards and looks around for Tess, who is waiting for him by the hallway that leads to the changing rooms. They have about 40 minutes before the final number, since they’re not in the last group number, and he’s thankful for it. He needs to calm down, ease the trepidation coursing through his veins.

“Jeff,” he says, and smiles pleasantly, “just...shut it.”

And then he leaves Buttle in the dust and clomps off to join Tessa, who slides her hand into his and smiles up at him.

“We did pretty well,” she says quietly, and he agrees, nods down at her proudly. She looks so pretty in that royal purple, he thinks, her pale skin glowing against the rich fabric.

She leans her head against his shoulder and squeezes his hand.

“You did well,” she says, and the praise makes his heart swell. God, he loves it when she says that, and it may be absurd in a nearly 27-year-old man, but compliments from her still make his fucking day. Every single time.

“You too,” he murmurs, and, taking a chance, presses a kiss to her hair. “You were brilliant out there, T.”

She sighs, a soft little sound, and then suddenly she turns in front of him and without warning slips her arms around his neck.

“I just love skating with you,” she says into his neck, and he swallows hard, remembers after a moment that he’s probably supposed to hug her back.

“Same here, kiddo,” he tells her, one hand splayed over her back, the other cupping the back of her head. It would be so easy, so damned easy, to lean back and slant his mouth over hers, to remember once again how she tastes, the feel of her lips moving against his…

He pulls back.

“Gotta get changed,” he says with forced ease, and she steps away from him, eyes never leaving his.

“Yeah…” she says, an inscrutable look in her eyes, and then she heads down the hall to her change room, and he’s alone again.

* * *

 

He’s out of his costume and has thrown on a pair of sweatpants when he hears a knock at the door. He’s alone in the change room, and will be for a while - the other male skaters have either already changed for the group number or are currently on the ice. So when he opens the door, he figures it’s one of them, coming back for something they left behind.

What he does _not_ expect to see is Tessa.

“Hey, T,” he says, trying not to be embarrassed by the fact that he’s bare-chested and wearing absolutely nothing but a pair of grey sweatpants. She looks up at him, very seriously, and for a moment he’s worried. “You okay?”

She shakes her head, and something tightens in his gut.

“Can I come in?” she says, and she sounds nervous. “I need...I have to tell you something.”

Oh, shit. Holy fucking shit. Did she overhear Buttle’s little inquisition earlier? Is she coming to tell him that something _is_ different, that he’s being a fucking pervert and she’s noticed and she’d very much like it to stop? He almost stops breathing, purely out of nerves.

“Yeah, yeah, of course,” he chokes out, and if she looks, he’s fairly sure she can see his heart pounding behind his ribs, the beats hard and fast enough to shake his chest. She brushes past him, and he closes the door with trembling fingers.

“What’s up, T?” he says, and if he was going for nonchalant, that was a piss-poor impression of it. Fortunately, she doesn’t seem to notice. She just stands there, in her beautiful purple costume, feet bare save for her tights, twisting her hands together.

“I...I’ve been thinking lately…” she starts, and he knows he’s staring, but he can’t think with this much adrenaline spiking through his system. “I mean...I know we said...we said we wouldn’t, but I...I think…”

What the hell is she trying to say? He can’t figure it out to save his life, and also his ears have started ringing, and he thinks that maybe this is what the beginning of a heart attack feels like.

“I don’t…” he starts, and can’t keep going because his throat is closing up. He’s going to have to sit down if she doesn’t tell him what she actually means, and quickly.

“Oh, _fuck_ ,” she snaps, and his head whips up out of instinct. She rarely curses, and when she does, something is definitely wrong. Before he can ask what it is, what’s going on, she strides over until she’s right in front of him - staring him down even though she’s shorter - and then she catches his face in both her hands, pulls it down, and kisses him.

It shocks the hell out of him. In fact, it shocks him so badly that he stumbles back against the door, and she lets go of his face to grab at his upper arms, fingers wrapping around his biceps, to keep him upright.

“Shhh,” she hisses fiercely. “You can’t go around making _noise_ , for God’s sake, Scott.”

He can’t think. He quite literally can’t process what she’s saying, because she just _kissed_ him for the first time in over a year, and he can’t believe this has actually happened. Maybe he’s hallucinating. Maybe he’s finally snapped. It could happen.

“Sit down,” she says, bossy, and shoves him gently towards the bench in the middle of the room. He obeys on autopilot, plopping down on the hard wooden surface and not feeling a thing. She stands in front of him, looking down at him soberly, and then slides her fingers into his hair, and he’s immediately in heaven.

“Just...be quiet,” she says, almost as if she’s talking to herself. “We can talk it all out later, but I can’t...I just can’t wait anymore. I’ve been trying, and I can’t.”

She can’t _what?_ That’s the only thing that gets through. She can’t wait for _what?_ But then she dips her head, her hand tightening in his hair, and he stops thinking straightaway.

Her mouth is somehow exactly what he remembered and so much more besides. She tastes like chocolate - she must’ve snuck some into her change room, which makes sense, because Tessa always squirreled away emergency chocolate in her skate bag. But underneath the smoky sweetness of the dark chocolate, it’s just her, just Tess, and dear God, he’s missed this. He’s missed the way she tilts her head, the way she nips at his lower lip, the way she traces her tongue along his teeth, accounting for him piece by piece. The way she opens her own mouth, sighing into him, inviting him in. He doesn’t even realise his hands are on her hips, drawing her closer, until her knees knock against the wooden bench.

He pulls back, looks up at her, into eyes that have gone dark green, her pupils dilated, and he can see the flush on her cheeks and her throat, all along the edges of her costume where it dips above her breasts.

“Tess…” he whispers. It’s the only word he can still remember how to say.

“Uh-uh,” she murmurs. “Don’t...don’t talk. Not yet. Just...shhh.”

And then she sinks down onto his lap, her knees straddling his hips, and he damned near loses his mind.

“Tessa,” he tries again, because somewhere in the haze of her body, warm and pliant, pressed against his, he vaguely remembers that he needs to find out _why_ she’s doing this, he’s got to stop her before she crosses a line she’ll regret later. “Tessa, what are you…”

She tugs at his hair, and he moans shamefully, loudly.

“I _said_ don’t talk,” she tells him, one eyebrow arched. “Unless you just don’t want to…”

He doesn’t let her finish.

“God yes, I want to, _please_ , Tess,” he babbles against her mouth, nonsensically, but she can’t stop, please God don’t ever let her stop. He has no idea what’s going on here, or what she’s thinking, or why, but he can’t bear the thought of her just...stopping. He’ll shut up from now till eternity if that’s what it takes.

“Good,” she says softly, and strokes her fingers across his cheeks, brushes them across his ears (she apparently remembers how much he loves that, how he leans into her touch and his eyelids dip with pleasure). She presses her mouth to his forehead, sweet and chaste, to the bridge of his nose, to his cheekbones, and her hand finds purchase on his shoulder, her fingernails digging in. He wraps both arms around her, lets his own hands play with the ends of her ponytail, lets himself revel in the silky strands gliding over his fingers.

“Let me see you,” she whispers after she kisses his jaw, down the side of his neck where he shivers at the sensation. He doesn’t know what she means, but realises quickly when she leans back to skim her hands over his bare chest.

“God, I didn’t realise…” she murmurs, and he flushes with pride and helpless arousal as she maps out his pectorals with her fingers, eyes wide and curious, as she slides her palms down his ribcage and traces his abs with her fingernails. He bucks up into her at that, biting back a groan, because it’s been _years_ since she’s done that, and the sensation shoots straight through him. She has to feel it, has to know that he’s pressed hard and wanting against her thigh, but she doesn’t seem to mind. In fact, if he’s not much mistaken, she shifts her weight over him until he’s brushing up against her centre, through three layers of fabric. It still drives him fucking wild.

“Tess,” he moans, sliding his hands up his arms. He wants to see her too, so badly he thinks he’ll explode with it, but he doesn’t dare ask. He did promise to be quiet, after all.

“There’s a zipper at the side,” she says, and he freezes for a moment before it hits him. Oh. _Oh_. She wants him to...oh God.

He finds it, pulls it down with hands that are shaking so badly that he can hardly make them work as they should. She helps him pull down the straps over her pale shoulders, and then she pushes down the bodice herself, and sweet Jesus, he’s nearly dead. It’s just _her_ , pale skin and soft rosy nipples, hardening in the cool air of the change room, and she’s so goddamn beautiful.

“Touch me,” she whispers, and lifts his hands to her skin. She’s soft, so very soft, and when he cups one breast reverently, she tilts her head back, eyes slamming shut as she whimpers deep in her throat. “Yeah, like that.”

“Yeah?” he says, quietly, rubbing one thumb over her nipple, barely grazing the skin, just as he remembers she liked it.

“God, yes, ohhhh,” she murmurs, voice low and thick, and it makes him brave, that voice, makes him think things he’s made himself deny for far too long.

“Can I…” he says, begs her with his eyes, and she nods. He bends his head, puts his mouth on her, and the taste of her, the goddamned taste. He nearly comes from just that, from the way she arches into him, her hands tangling in his hair again, the low groan that rumbles through her chest.

He doesn’t know how long he spends there, re-learning the feel and taste and scent of her, before she shoves at his shoulder, not gently. For a second he’s terrified he screwed up, that she doesn’t want this anymore, and then she pushes off of him and he knows it. Goddamn it, what the hell did he _do?_

He opens his mouth to plead with her and abruptly realises two things: first, that she’s stripping out of her costume, and second, that she’s not wearing a goddamn thing underneath it.

She looks at him, a challenge in her eyes, and then grabs his hand.

“Come on,” she says. “If you think we’re fucking out here in the open where anyone can walk in on us, you’re crazy.”

He had not, in fact, thought anything of the sort. In fact, he had not thought anything at all. He can’t think. His brain is done with thinking. Possibly forever.

She pulls at him, then bends over to pick up her costume while still holding his hand, and the sight of her bent down like that, stark naked, makes something break inside him.

“Where do you want to go?” he says. His voice sounds so rough and thick, he almost doesn’t recognise it.

She purses her lips, thinking, and then tilts her head towards the showers.

“In here,” she says. “It’s not ideal, but...it’ll do.”

Fortunately the showers are dry, all of them. No one’s used them all day. But he really doesn’t give a damn about the particulars of their location when she shoves him into the farthest shower stall and pulls the curtain closed.

“Sit down,” she orders, and he realises that there’s a bench in here too. He’s not entirely sure _why_ , but at this point, he doesn’t much care.

“Tess…” he says, looking at her, all of her, so tiny and graceful and muscular (and God, he’s always loved how strong she is), her curves slim but lovely, hips and ass and legs so perfect he could look at them for days. He’s dreamed of her like this, thought of her shamefully in the shower and in his lonely bed at night for the past eight months (thought of her before then, even, and hated himself for it when he was with another woman). And yet nothing he remembered lives up to the reality.

“Never mind, stand up,” she says, determined, and he does exactly as he’s told. With very little warning, she reaches down and shoves his sweatpants down, and then they’re just _there_ , completely bare and facing each other, nothing else between them.

“I love you,” she says, without preamble. “I love you. I’m in love with you. And, if you don’t have any objections, I’m going to fuck you right there on that bench. We can talk through the rest later - I don’t have any objections to that, but I want you so badly I think I’m going to die if I can’t have you, and I’m tired of waiting. I’m so fucking tired of waiting.”

She pauses and looks at him, as if to gauge if he’s still breathing. (He’s not entirely sure he is.)

“Just...don’t say anything. Not yet. Not like...that. Okay?”

He lets her gaze rake over him, feels like he’s burning up from the inside. She loves him. _She loves him_ , she fucking _loves_ him, she’s _in_ love with him, and he can’t breathe. She loves him, she wants him, and this isn’t just a fever dream, a quick fuck in the change room showers for no good reason. This isn’t just lust or impulse or any one of the hundred and five things he had feared. She _loves him_.

Jesus, he has to tell her...has to tell her everything.

“Just let me say one thing, Tess.” His voice is scratchy, thick with too much emotion and want. He’s too much of _everything_ in this particular moment.

Her eyes snap up to his, wide and very bright.

“Don’t say it,” she says, peremptorily. “Don’t say it yet. Let me just...just be quiet, Scott, please.”

And then she pushes him back down on the bench, climbs onto him, and brings his hand between her thighs where she’s already wet, so wet, and he can’t protest. Doesn’t even remember how.

“Jesus Christ, Tess,” he groans. “My God, you’re so…”

She grins at him, presses his fingers deeper, and his head thuds back against the tiles.

“Can I…” he starts, and she huffs in frustration.

“ _Yes_ , for God’s sake, Scott, yes,” she hisses, and he crooks two fingers inside her without waiting any longer. She whimpers, loudly, and when he sets a rhythm with his fingers and his thumb on her clit, she rocks against him and buries her face in his neck.

“Don’t stop, Jesus, oh please don’t ever stop,” she mutters into the crook of his neck, and then she scrapes her teeth against his collarbone and his hips jerk up of their own accord.

“I wanna make you come, just like this,” he whispers, and she stiffens against him, her hand coming to his wrist, stopping him.

“Oh God, we can’t,” she says, looking wild-eyed all of a sudden, and if she’s changed her mind, he thinks he may expire right here in this rather dingy shower stall. They’ll find him, dead, on the bench, naked, and won’t that be embarrassing for his family.

“Okay, but...why not?” he manages through gritted teeth. “Tess…”

“We don’t have _time_ ,” she pants, and pulls his hand away from her. “We have to hurry, they’ll be back soon.”

He’s not sure who “they” are anymore, but it hardly matters.

“Well, what do you…” he begins, and then she takes him in her hands, those small, neatly manicured fingernails lightly scratching, and he nearly explodes.

“ _Tessa_ ,” he barks out. “Holy fuck, I can’t - baby, you have to stop, I won’t last, I can’t - ”

She grins wickedly and lets go of him, rises up on her knees so that she’s positioned just above him.

“Then let’s go,” she says, pressing a surprisingly tender kiss to his cheek, and then she sinks down onto him.

It’s everything, every single thing he hasn’t let himself think about for nearly two years. She’s hot and wet and feels so damn good he could weep with the wonder of it. But it’s not just that, it’s her, it’s _Tessa_ , rocking against him with that look in her eyes again, the one she had so long ago in 2008 - before the first surgery, before they broke each other’s hearts, before jealousy and anger and bitterness had seeped in. She looks at him like she trusts him, like she loves him, like he’s her whole entire world. Like she knows that she’s his world too.

He kisses her then, before they set a rhythm, deliberate and steady and not too fast (because in this position they really _can’t_ be fast). He wants to remember this, remember her mouth opening sweetly under his, remember the way her thighs tremble around his hips as he kisses the column of her neck, the little divot at her throat where her collarbones meet, the way she whimpers when he brushes his lips across the tops of her breasts and curves his hands around her shoulderblades. He wants every inch of her imprinted on his brain, permanently, so that if this never happens again, if for some reason she changes her mind (and she has so many reasons, he thinks), he will never be able to forget.

She picks up the pace a little, her breath coming fast, her eyes fluttering shut, and he is groaning loudly at the feel of her, sliding a hand down to toy with her clit, when all of a sudden there’s the sound of a door opening and the chatter of voices entering the room.

Oh _fuck_.

She freezes on top of him, her eyes huge. This is it, they’ve run out of time, and oh God, he can’t think of anything worse than this. Not in this moment, anyway. They’re going to have to stop, and figure out some way to get her out of here in time, and be quiet about it, and he’s going to be so fucking miserable for the rest of the night. (He devoutly hopes she’ll be at least a little miserable too. It’s not a kind thought, but he deeply hopes she doesn’t want this to end either.)

And then she clamps one hand over his mouth, draws herself up carefully on her knees, and pushes herself back down. Hard. He doesn’t mean to, he really doesn’t, but his hips snap up to meet hers, and she keens, softly, and then clenches her jaw to keep herself from getting any louder.

“Be _quiet_ ,” she whispers, leaning in until her mouth is directly at his ear. “Absolutely quiet, do you understand me?”

He nods once, her hand still firmly over his mouth, and then she picks up the pace. She has to be bruising her knees against the hard tiles of the bench, but she doesn’t seem to care. To be perfectly honest, there's a part of him that genuinely can't believe that Tessa Virtue is currently fucking him in a men's change room with at least half a dozen guys milling around out there and only a thin shower curtain between the two of them and their potential audience. It doesn't matter that he's known her for eighteen years - she still manages to shock the hell out of him sometimes. 

Almost as if she knows what he's thinking, she grabs his hand and brings it down between her thighs. He gets the message immediately, rubbing his thumb against her in hard, fast circles. Her breath catches at that, and she presses herself into his fingers, never stopping the rapid rhythm she’s set, until suddenly she’s shaking, trembling like a leaf in the wind, her whole body consumed with it from head to toe. She topples forward, the hand on his mouth falling nervelessly to her side, and she bites his shoulder hard as she comes, clenching around him and muffling her moans against his skin. 

“That’s it, baby, come on,” he whispers into her hair, so softly that he knows she can barely hear it over the chatter outside their little cubicle. “God, you’re so fucking beautiful like this, you can’t even know…”

She raises her head from his shoulder, ignoring the very plain bite marks she’s left behind, and looks him dead in the eye.

“Now you,” she mouths, and then she kisses him, long and slow, licking deep into his mouth, and he can’t help it. It’s like she can command him at will, like his body is trained to give her anything she wants, and just like that he’s gone, hips jerking against hers and his mind lost to a white-hot haze and the feel of Tessa’s lips on his.

When he comes to, it’s quiet outside. She’s curled against him, her head on his shoulder again, although definitely no biting this time. Her hair brushes his cheek as she turns her head, and she sighs against him, sated and sleepy.

“I think the coast is clear,” she says, although she makes no move to get up. “We should get dressed, we have the final number soon and Jeff will kill us if…”

He silences her with his thumb against her mouth, brushes it gently against her lower lip.

“Tess,” he says, gravely, and she stops talking. “Let me say it. For God’s sake, let me say it.”

She sits up, easing away from him, and then stands, facing the curtain. He follows suit, although his legs are so wobbly they might as well be made of Jell-O.

“Tess,” he says, softly, reaching for her, and she spins around before he can touch her.

“You don’t have to,” she says quickly, and her eyes are nervous, darting everywhere. “It doesn’t have to be like that. Just because I said it, you don’t…”

He grabs her shoulders. For fuck’s sake, he has never met a more stubborn woman in his whole entire life.

“I love you,” he says, plain and clear and probably a little louder than he intended. “I am in love with you, okay? And yeah, I kind of wish this were somewhere a little, y’know, more romantic. Like a garden at sunset or something, not a shower stall in the arena, but it doesn’t _matter_. None of it matters, because it’s _you_. It’s always been you, Tess, ever since I was old enough to know what love meant, it’s been you. And I’m not saying it because we just jumped each other in a goddamn shower stall, I’m saying it because I can’t imagine not being with you. Because I can’t imagine a future where I don’t get to kiss you at least one more time, where we’re just skating partners and that’s it. I love you, dammit, more than I ever have before, and I just…”

He cuts off, because she’s raised her hands to her mouth and is standing there, naked as the first day, laugh-crying and staring at him with tears sparkling in her eyes.

“You’re so damned perfect,” she half-sobs, and then she’s in his arms, and it’s no longer about want. No, he doesn’t want for a damned thing, not when Tessa said she loves him, not when she’s weeping with joy into his chest, not when he’s peppering her with kisses anywhere he can reach.

“I love you, I love you so damn much, _Tess_ , my God, I love you,” he’s murmuring, his mouth moving like wildfire over her skin, when the door bangs open and they jump apart, startled out of their wits.

“Tessa Jane McCormick Virtue!” a voice booms.

It’s Buttle. It’s fucking Jeffrey Buttle. How the hell did he…

“I _know_ you’re in there,” Jeff yells. He sounds both extremely judgemental and extremely hacked-off. “I was going to tell you that I have your costume for the final number. I’m going to leave it on this bench. I would like for you both to know that I cannot _believe_ that you did this, and I _will_ see both of you _immediately_ after the show.”

There’s a pause, in which they both stand there frozen as Lot’s wife, twin pillars of very guilty salt. Then Buttle’s voice booms out again.

“I’m going to leave now, before I see something I can never forget.” There’s another pause, and then Buttle clears his throat in a highly irritated fashion. “And I sincerely hope you two are thoroughly ashamed of yourselves, I really do. The _nerve_.”

And then the door slams shut, and it’s silent again.

They stare at each other with what he’s fairly sure are matching expressions of horror until suddenly Tessa doubles over, holding onto the bench for support. He reaches for her, worried she’s suddenly ill, and then he realises the truth.

She’s _laughing_.

“Oh my God,” she cackles, giggling so hard she’s starting to wheeze. “Oh God. Only us. This would only happen to us. Jesus, Scott, did you hear him, he’s - ”

And then she starts cackling again, to the point where he hauls her upright against him to make sure she’s breathing and her laughter starts shaking his entire body.

“Holy shit, Tess,” he whispers, and then he’s laughing too. “Come on, let’s get out of here, go get changed before he comes in here and actually manages to murder us. I don’t want to die at Jeff Buttle’s hands, really I don’t.”

They go over to the bench, where Tessa’s costume for the final number is indeed neatly laid out. Moving as fast as they can, they scramble into their costumes with limbs that are still trembling a little from earlier. God knows his legs barely feel capable of holding him upright. But if that’s the price he has to pay, he’ll take it, a hundred times over.

On their way out the door, he stops her with a hand to her cheek.

“I meant it, every word,” he says, and she smiles at him, leans up to press her lips to his.

“I know,” she says, simply.

“We’ve still got stuff to talk about,” he says, and cradles her face between his hands. “I know that. But fuck it all, Tess, I love you. We’ll make it work. Whatever it takes, we’ll make it work.”

She nods, and he pulls her in, holds her against him for a moment that feels like eternity.

“Let’s go,” she whispers into his neck, and he holds on for just another second.

“Okay,” he tells her, and even though it’s barely a whisper in the stillness of the room, it still sounds like thunder in his ears.

He’s not being quiet anymore.

**Author's Note:**

> Hello, my loves! It has been a long time since I posted things on here. Quite a long time. 
> 
> I wrote this back in September and just never found the wherewithal to post it. And then I read all these beautiful anonymous Valentine's Day fics and thought, "Eh, why not?"
> 
> It's a little late for Valentine's Day, I know, but...here you are. A little sweet, fluffy VM smut to start out your weekend. Hope you enjoy!
> 
> Also, I have kind of sort of started writing another chapter, picking up where this one left off, from Tessa's POV. Got to see if I can actually get that one finished...wish me luck. ;)
> 
> (Oh, and sympathise with Buttle. My poor Buttle. He has been through so much.)


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